


Still Orbiting

by karrenia_rune



Category: Andromeda
Genre: Community: smallfandomfest, F/M, Freedom, Promptfic, Round 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-05
Updated: 2011-12-05
Packaged: 2017-10-26 23:32:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/289092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/pseuds/karrenia_rune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A look at the tug-of-war relationship between Rommie and Gabriel and the choices that each of them makes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still Orbiting

Disclaimer: Andromeda is the creation of Gene Roddenberry and belongs to Tribune Entertainment and Fireworks productions. It is not mine.

"Still Orbiting" by karrenia

 

Logically this, she would not call it a relationship exactly, should not even be possible. And logically, she should accept that as a given and move on.  
And yet, from the moment they first met, either within the ship within her memory core Rommie now felt more alive, more aware than ever before.

Gabriel is a remnant of the time before the fall of the Systems Commonwealth, a ship’s avatar that has not only survived the destruction of his own ship but thrived. When pressed Gabriel refused to go into much detail about the happenstances of his old ship’s crew, who have by now, more than likely become historical footnotes. Regrettable, but a matter of fact.  
Gabriel has said that “Fate is an open road, and all you can do is put your foot on the gas and Drive, Baby Drive.”

She did not completely understand the exact meaning behind this statement, other than that it is anachronistic one, and she made a mental note to ask her ship’s engineer, Seamus Harper about it.

Still she does understand the gist behind it. She allowed herself a tiny smile, thinking even as she did so ‘There is something about him that I find intriguing.’

However, by that very token oftentimes Gabriel would adopt the mannerisms of one who believes he has is superior to both organics and androids, and he knows how that kind of attitude will grate on the nerves of those with him he comes into contact.

How he managed to pull it off she did not, and logically she decided that it really does not matter overly much in the long run.

Gabriel can be both irritating and charming, and in all the time that she has known him she has not yet managed to pull those answers out of him; instead he pushes and pulls,  
Gabriel is nothing if not suave, but his also has a cruel side, one that jars with the churning sensations that has so much difficult in reconciling within herself.

She knew that as avatars that they were designed to simulate human emotions, human interactions, designed to learn and grow only within the framework of their programmed parameters; and yet perhaps there is room to expand, room to move beyond.

“If stop moving, we stop growing and learning, and I will believe that I shall move on.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that,” Gabriel said at one point. “Freedom shouldn’t be just another word when you have nothing left to lose.”

Freedom. She has never thought of her duty first to the Commonwealth and now to Dylan Hunt and the ship as a kind of lack of freedom, even now when Gabriel is spouting the idea that as an avatar they can be something more than artificial humanoid.

“Only that thing is free which exists by the necessities of its own nature, and is determined in its actions by itself alone.” She recognizes the quote from somewhere but at the moment its exact origin escapes her and offers Gabriel the slightest of shrugs. “As Harper would say, que sera sera. Or what is, is.”

Gabriel nodded and suddenly glided forward to take her by the shoulders his hair tousled and his handsome face flushed. “Rommie, Rommie, even we are capable of love, off making our own decisions, why should we be constrained by someone else’s will. So what if we are or rather were, designed to be AIs, we can be so much more.”

“I recognize that what you say is true, Gabriel,” but by the same token, I am not constrained, I have made my own decisions.”

Gabriel is also well aware that he can only press so far, that Rommie must come to a decision in the matter on her own terms.  
Freedom. The idea is a tempting one: It also an dangerous idea that she knew even her captain, Dylan Hunt finds ways, in both body language and conversational gaps to avoid discussing.

It’s illogical behavior but understandable for he’s human and she knows Dylan Hunt isn’t exactly sanguine about the growing attraction between herself and Gabriel, or the seemingly potentially dangerous influence that his presence aboard has on her. Should she choose to go along with Gabriel’s plan, whatever it might be, there would undoubtedly be a potential conflict of interest and if she talked it over Dylan he more than likely would protest that she is more valuable where she is right now and that Gabriel is not to be trusted. She knows the arguments that he would present both out of a sense of his duty towards her and as her friend, so she chose not to talk him about it; not just yet.

She is well aware that it is not just her that wants to avoid talking about. It occurred to her that Dylan who had once been a high-ranking officer in the High Guard is holding onto the cultural taboos about such things, still, Dylan is human and often even the best of them are prone to error.

Gabriel has extended a hand, beckoning at the thresh-hold of a doorway. He is offering her another path should she choose to follow him down it. And she is tempted, but both logic and duty forestall her from taking that final step.

Gabriel came to her often these days, smiling his charming grin, laughing his quicksilver chuckle, and he embraced her, thinking nothing of the taboos that were established more than three hundred years go.

As far as he is concerned this is a new age, and he is, in a manner of speaking, a new man. It may have been the sheerest of coincidences that brought them together. However, in the back of his mind he thought, ‘I  
prefer to think it destiny, kismet, what have you.’

At that precise moment while she waited the outcome of a routine diagnostic he took her in his arms and sparks fly, if so melodramatic a term can be applied here.

“Freedom is not the right to do what we want, but what we ought. Let us have faith that right makes might and in that faith let us; to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.”

In the end she finds that her choice is as difficult as it might be lies in her own will and her sense of duty, and that is to the ship and its crew. And in that she discovered that freedom can come in all kinds of permutations. She has made her choice and found that she can live with it.


End file.
